In Response to a Vegetto EX Editorial

By Underfaker

[Miko's note:  The editorial that is being spoken about can be found here]

First of all, lets not beat around the bush. I enjoy Planetnamek.com and VegettoEX does write very nice articles, however, this latest article seemed to strike a bit of a sore spot. I took sometime to formulate responses to VegettoEX’s article. This editorial is done because of the want and need to express my OWN opinion, not because I went crying to someone or because I
have a personal score to settle. Well, maybe i’m trying to get noticed by the DBZ community, har har.


All quotes are the original, no changes or alterations. The original article will bedenoted with a > and italic and my own comments shall be bold normal print.


>And that's not even mentioning the rabid anime fans, many of whom abhor
>what FUNimation has done to their favorite Japanese show. So is FUNimation's
Dragonball Z "gay and crappy," as one typically charming e-mail diatribe states,
or is it "the greatest show ever made for TV," reflecting the other extreme


Right after the article gets into speaking of the fans, we're already all being thrown into a group labeled as "rabid." We're also all thrown into a group that refers to everything we disagree with as being homosexual. A resounding "WAY TO GO!" to all the idiots that continue to e-mail FUNi saying "ur gay." If you guys even BEGIN to start on me about the "idiots" label... just save
yourself the trouble, OK?


There are a lot of you out there that need to start understanding something. Unless you back up your statements with actual evidence, you're not going to be taken seriously. If you're still in school (or even if you're not), pretend you're writing one of the wonderful persuasive essays
we've all been forced to write and rewrite. You're trying to persuade the reader of the e-mail that your opinion is the correct one. By insulting them with poor grammar, you're not only getting absolutely NO point across, you're simply taking up time they could put towards something more constructive. Now, don't think I'm asking you all to stop sending negative thoughts at FUNi. This would be a very bad thing. There's never been anything wrong with (nor will there ever be anything wrong with) a little constructive criticism, but learn how to do it in a mature manner. It makes things much easier for everyone.


What is wrong with the rabid label? It merely means that you are dedicated and
concerned about Dragonball Z to the point that you make a website over it, write articles
for it, criticize it and pay good money for it. I’m a rabid DBZ fan. Its probably in 2nd
place for the thing I spend most money on (Wrestling is number 1). About the
homosexual thing, I don’t quite understand. Maybe its the wording, but it almost makes
it seem like that VegettoEX is saying that FUNimation likes to group anyone that that
disagrees with anything FUNimation has ever done is homosexual and/or has
homosexual tendencies. Maybe I am reading this wrong or the wording is wrong, please
say that this isn’t the way its meant to be interpreted. An accusation of this sort is no
laughing matter.


>Dragonball Z has boasted top ratings in England, Mexico, France, and Spain
>for years, where uncensored versions of the show have appeared ever since Toei,
Ltd. -- the animation company often called "The Walt Disney of the Orient"
-- began producing the show in Japan in 1987. <


I thought this was an incredible point to bring up, and probably one of the best things that was written in the entire article. This obviously shows that people in many other nations are perfectly capable of watching the show as it's intended to be shown, and on television, nonetheless. Nevermind a video release; these countries actually get well-dubbed "DragonBall" aired on their
television! It's sad to think that companies in this country and our own government thinks so little of us, that we're not able to experience the program in its true form, while many other countries have been doing such for years.


No, this shows that rules are different in other parts of the world. Germany has a
large stretch of road with no speed limit called the “Autobahn”, so does this mean that
Germany has supreme faith in the driving abilities of their people? Should America drop
the speed limit law? England has televisions shows with full frontal nudity, should we sit
down and watch that with younger siblings or your own children? Just because
“everyone else does it”, doesn’t mean its not the right thing. Mexico...well, I won’t get
into the stuff that you can do legally in Mexico that you can’t in the U.S. I’ve mentioned
this before in another editorial I did and that is other countries are different than
America. Laws are decided with the best interest of the people in mind. Censorship is
one of these things. Its sad but that is just the way things are. And no, our government
doesn’t think much of us and our t.v. habits. They never have. It all boils down to the
fact that mothers run the country and decide what gets put on t.v. While I am on the
subject, what is the difference between what we see and the “true” form? Is it because
they change dialogue? Is it because the nudity is edited out? Perhaps blood exploding
from people’s mouths are turned down a bit. Do these things REALLY affect the appeal
and liking of DBZ? Its not as if they change the story (Frieza is an evil homosexual
trying to gang rape Namek with his Ginyu Force and its up to the Christian Elite Goku to
stop him). The story is still the same, its just the delivery is changed. This all goes back
to the Subbie vs. Dubbie argument.


>In short, it is the responsibility of FUNimation to Americanize a wildly
>popular anime phenomenon -- even if that means deleting some of the show's more
graphic (and, perhaps, appealing) elements. <

Oh, let's not bother mentioning the people with an IQ over that of a peacock who like the show for something other than being a "fighting show." There's nothing appealing about Freezer being chopped up into three pieces by his own Kienzan. What is appealing is the fact that despite the fact that he's killed millions upon millions of helpless people, he's at the mercy of the one
legendary warrior who's fighting for all that's just. It's not up to FUNimation to "Americanize" it. It's up to FUNimation to do a respectable job on something that's respected everywhere else in the world. They've got standards (set by every other country) to live up to, and so far, they haven't even nearly achieved such.

I don’t quite get the “Americanizing” of DBZ. This must have been a
phrase tossed in the original newspaper article to say “editing”, because I don’t see any
evidence of “Americanize”. No, it isn’t up to FUNimation to do a respectable job on
DBZ. Is their job to get as much merchandise is sold and make a profit. FUNimation isn’t
around for the people, its around for the money. Any company is like that. What do
they care if there are standards to be met? There are voices to be dubbed and scenes to
be changed.  People will still shell out the cash and THAT is all that matters in the
end. Not the fans, their opinions or the so-called “watering down” of DBZ. In fact, all of
this harkens to a system of organizing people that was created for wrestling fans. The smarts and the marks. If you are a shrewd buisnessman, you know what the mark is already. The mark is someone that pays you money for the performance, whether it be t-shirts, video tapes, a ticket or even ratings. The mark enjoys the show for what it is and never questions it.The smart is the person that rips the product apart trying to find every
flaw and problem. The sad part is, everyone is a mark. You can re-word the explanation of a mark but everyone is STILL A MARK. Alright, maybe you don’t buy the tapes or the
shirts. But do you watch the show? Did you buy a fandub or fansub? Do you tune into
Cartoon Network and raise the ratings? Even if you don’t spend one penney on DBZ,
you still make it money even if you watch it on t.v. Your viewing is documented into
ratings. Higher ratings means that Cartoon Network can charge more for the
advertising during the DBZ program. And I don’t think ReBoot commands the advertising rates that DBZ does.


>Politically, it's smart; if people start complaining, you can always blame
>the third-party censors for their decisions. <


This just SCREAMS back toward one of the first editorials I ever posted by someone else, which asked the question of who's the real scapegoat.


The real scapegoat? Who knows. Might as well try and find out who killed JFK.


>Also removed for U.S. viewers is spurting, flowing, or coughed-up blood
>(turns out pools of blood and blood stains are A-OK) and what is called in the
kid's entertainment biz "imitatable violence" as opposed to "fantasy violence" --
say, kicking someone in the face vs. destroying a mountain with energy blasts
from your palms. <


America continues to baffle me.

Makes sense to me. Kicking someone in the face is “imitatable violence” because
you can actually do that. You can kick someone in the face, that is physically possible.
Destroying a mountain with an energy blast is “fantasy violence” because you
can not blow up a mountain with energy blasts. Little Johnny can kick Freddie in
the face, but he can’t use his Gallick Gun to blow the whole thing up. The blood thing
baffles me as well, unless they mean that the actually visual transmission of blood
(spurting, coughing or flowing) is wrong because we see where it comes from and how it can be
drawn. Pools of blood and blood stains don’t show where it comes from. *shrugs
shoulder* Stupid as that may sound that is probably the reasoning. Probably the same
reasoning that said a more proper finishing move for Johnny Cage on the Super Nintendo
version of Mortal Kombat was you can’t uppercut his head off, but you can punch   straight through
his chest all day long. Or that Kano can’t pull their heart out, but he is more than
welcome to stab them with his knife. America- Get used to the confusion. There are 20
million other people with the same lost feeling.


>Watson and Fukunaga defensively use the word "action" rather than violence,
and both contend Dragonball Z is a "moral" show with a nerdy hero who says
such things as "That's not playing fair." <


I'm sitting here picturing the classic high-school nerd (glasses, bad hair that sticks up, spasms, lisp) saying something along the lines of "That's not playing fair," and throwing
him into "DragonBall Z." What I get is a pain in my stomach that results in a near-vomit. I really can't fathom hearing Gokou saysomething like "That's not playing fair," as a nerd. Gokou's not a nerd, my dear Watson. The innocence heportrays is the innocence we all wish we could obtain. This is far from being "nerd"-y. You're quite obviously interpreting things a tad too.... WRONG.


What is a nerd? You can classify them by two things- Looks and Methods.
You are using the Look method, not the Method method. Method merely says that if
you do something “uncool” then you are a nerd. If that is the case, then calling
Goku a nerd is understandable. He is “nerd”-y because he is a goody-two-shoes and naive.
Gullible and a sucker. Is that nerdy? If thats how you look at things. And the “That’s
not playing fair” line...depends on the delivery. If he was talking about Frieza sneak
attacking him then it might be funny. Don’t know though. Yes, we all wish we could be
innocent. But the way you are interpreting things is WAY TOO WRONG.


Since we are on the subject, why does everyone consider Goku to be
innocent? There is a difference between innocence and being naive or gullible. If the
Goku knows what to do to have 2 kids, help kill his own brother (evil as he may
be) and kill King Kai or Kaio-sama with an exploding Cell (even though he had no
other choice), then is Goku still innocent and pure? Lets not get too confused
and start throwing around the innocent label.



>Watson insists those fans who think FUNimation heavily sanitizes the show
>are
guided by a mistaken impression from so-called fansubs and fandubs --
unauthorized copies of the show dubbed or subtitled illegally and available
widely
on the Internet and in anime stores. (There are two such retail outlets in
Dallas.) <


Mario said it best. "Here we goooooooooooo!"


First of all, let us place the blame on Anime Labs. This isn't our fault, it's not TOEI's fault. It's the fault of
a bunch of MORONS who decided to have Vegeta say "You fucking blew up my
house!" in DBZ movie
thirteen ("Ryu Ken Bakuhatsu! Gokou Ga Yaranakaya Dare Ga Yaru?"). There ARE
the few of us that
realize the dialogue in "DragonBall" does not consist of many
four-letter-words. The people who don't
realize this are the people who find fansubs to be gospel. I've got news for
you, guys... fansubs are great
(before a show is commercially picked up), but there's very few fansubbers
who don't let a few things get in
there. Vegeta doesn't say "fuck." That's all there is to it. I know that,
and I know lots of other people who
know it. To throw every single person who's seen a fansub into this group is
an absolute atrocity. In fact,
every person who truly understands fansubs knows for a fact that the
dialogue is VERY loosely translated.
It's the occasional watcher who's getting "D" quality subs off of eBay that
does not realize this. It's for
these people that we need to get a decent version being shown so that they
can finally understand where
people like myself are coming from.


We know what the dialogue is supposed to be like. How about getting it like
that, big guys? You can rant all
you want about cutting out the curses from fansubs (which, by the way, I
agree with; I'm still wondering
how you managed to get Dende to say "Don't piss off the God of Love!" on a
children's show when the
Namek-sei-jin child never said anything remotely like this in the original
Japanese dialogue; you continue
to astound me).


I perfer Monty Python’s approach. “And off we go again.”


Watson insisted on the fans that think FUNimation heavily edit the show. Of course.
How else would they know what the original was like if they hadn’t seen
fansubs or fandubs? And since when Watson say that everyone whose seen a fansub is a
person who finds the fansub gospel? He didn’t say it, you did. About the translation-
Of course it is very loose. How many words in the English language can mean the same thing?
However, if they didn’t throw a cussword in it, then someone else was bound
to. Maybe Vegeta does say “F*ck”. You criticize FUNimation for the corny new
dialogue, but what sounds “cool”, “You friggin’ blew up my house!” or “You f*cking blew up my
house!” Me, I don’t care. I’d probably insert my own words instead. Then you go
and say that you know what the dialogue is supposed to be like. I don’t think anyone
REALLY knew what it was supposed to be like except for the creator of the show. Now
about the God of Love thing...I have no idea at all. None. Maybe it was “Bring Crack To
Work Day” or something.


>The hard-core fans often insert English profanity in places where the
>Japanese
translation could go either way. For instance, if Gohan, our monkey-tailed
boy
hero, screws up and utters an expletive, it could "correctly" be translated
as either
"Oh, fudge!" or "Oh, fuck!" <


I reiterate the fact that it's absurd to say "fans," here. It's the
idiotic fansubbers who have a child say
"fuck" that's the problem.


Absurd to say “fans”? These people took time and equipment to put out
these tapes...I think that qualifies as being a fan. What more do they have to do?


>Message boards and Web sites all across the Internet were creaking under
>the
weight of outrage when FUNimation changed the word "HELL" written across the
chest of three demon brothers to "HFIL." What the hell is HFIL? It's short
for
"Home For Infinite Losers," a tyke-friendly version of eternal damnation. <


If it wasn't such a stupid idea, we wouldn't be complaining. Not only
would it have just been easier to
simply paint over the entire word "HELL" on the two characters, but you
would have saved yourself from
creating one of the two largest sources of mockery we have for you people
(the second being the whole
"next dimension" concept).


Paint over the word “HELL”? But I thought t-shirts with words were   trendy. I see
nothing wrong with the name “Home For Infinite Losers”. But when Goku first
lands there, did you immidiately think, “Wow! He’s in Hell now!” Did Hell look
like Hell? Depends on which religion you feel like following today. I have no idea
about the Japanese belief of Hell. I think their belief of Hell is a similar belief,
like the Catholic Purgatory, which is that you don’t burn for eternity, just for a while until
you soul is cleansed and you can enter Heaven. Not the exact same thing, but almost.
Instead, the soul is reincarnacted. I had more of a problem with “HELL” than I did with
“HFIL”. In my belief, Hell is filled with demons, fire and brimstone. So maybe
FUNimation changed the name from “HELL” because it didn’t represent the popular
Christian Hell, but rather a different place, hence the Home For Infinite Losers.


While on the subject, what is wrong with the “next dimension” concept?
Isn’t Death considered another dimension? In fact, with the wording “next dimension” it
would lead to belief that they don’t die, per se, but rather go onto another level for
something new.

And if good, they go onto the “next dimension” of Heaven and if bad
then they go to Hell, get the soul cleaned up then reincarnated. “Next dimension” works
fine.


>"Dragonball Z is filled with characters named Mr. Satan and references to
>gods
and devils," he says. "The show has its own mythology that's very
hierarchical." <


God forbid (HAH! I made a funny!) you bring a little culture over.


There is a reason why this little bit of culture would flop. You seem to
forget that the majority of America is a Christian-based religion. If you start bringing
over a religious hierarchy of demons and gods then you are just begging for trouble. I mean,
the name Mr. Satan is crying out for mothers to ban the show. Lets not even start on
the crowd chanting “SATAN, SATAN, SATAN!”. Yeah, that’ll fly with a lot of people
here. Not everyone is open-minded.


>It seems Dragonball Z fans are so passionate, they don't just criticize
>what
FUNimation edits -- they criticize how they edit. <


They placed a rock in front of Gohan's foot one time. Toes are now
considered nudity. They painted
over a sign (written in Japanese, mind you) that read "Occupied" on a
bathroom door. Foreign symbols =
evil. Explain, please.


Placed a rock in front of Gohan’s foot? I don’t remember this edit. And
if they did add a rock then who cares? Is “the rock that covers nothing” that
important? They painted over the “Occupied” sign. Sure they did. It was written in
Japanese. Foreign symbols = Non-English/Non-Understandable. The normal American viewer
wouldn’t know what the word was, so they miss nothing. I sure didn’t miss it. And
weren’t you calling for the painting over the word “HELL” a second ago?


>"I'd get an e-mail from some 14-year-old saying, 'That guy sucks dicks. I
>could
do a better job repainting Gohan with my Commodore 64,'" Byron recalls. "I
don't
take it personally anymore, but when you first start getting that shit, man,
it
hurts." <


I can actually relate to this. Unfortunately, a lot of the edits that
have been done were downright
stupid. That's not our fault. I'm not saying the insults are justified
(they're not), but there's no way we can
get around thinking something like that when we see the color of a drink has
been changed so-as not to
infer that someone's drinking a beer (Old man? Beer? UNHEARD OF!).


Now this is something I can partially agree with. We have all seen  someone drink
beer and we know what it is. But this falls under the catagory “If its seen
on t.v., then the kids want to emulate it”. If kids see a man drinking beer then they might
want beer too. Although my first beer made me not want to drink anymore.


>"The rhythm part wasn't difficult for me," says John Freeman of Denton
>art-rock
band Dooms U.K., who played supervillain Vinegar -- "a big purple killing
machine
with Viking horns" who was destroyed after about 10 episodes. <


There's a man from an art-rock band named "Dooms U.K." doing a voice in
"DragonBall Z." Shoot me
now. While we're at it, can someone tell me what the heck "art-rock" is
supposed to be? Is it simply one of
those rip-off genres? If so, I'd like to smash your CDs.


How does being in an art-rock band affect your voice? Does the simple
fact that him being in “Dooms U.K.” mean that his voice is not the right one? Give the
guy some slack. No one is perfect. As for art-rock, I have no idea. Give me good
old hard rock and heavy metal anyday.


>(John Freeman - ) "But I had a blast. I hope I get to tour all the fantasy
conventions and sign autographs." <


Don't get your hopes up, bub.


Everybody has dreams. It could happen.


>The new vocal talent are stage actors, standup comics, singers, librarians,
>even
mothers from Denton, Fort Worth, and Dallas whom FUNimation casting director
Chris Sabat enlists for characters both major and minor. He actually does
about
20 different characters and is the only on-staff voice talent for the show.
He
insists he was instrumental in convincing Barry Watson and FUNimation that
all
the vocal chops they required could be found in the surrounding area. They
began recording Texas voices in February 1999, and those shows, Dragonball
Z's third season and its first post-Saban episodes with the Cartoon Network,
began airing last September. <


This is where we start having a problem. You can say we complain that the
voices were changed. You're
full of crap. Sabat's doing twenty voices. This is wrong. Standup comics?
LIBRARIANS? Goodness!!!
These people aren't professional voice actors. What the Hell are they doing
voice acting, then? Is it
because you can pay them less? Is it because they were the only ones around?


I was E-mailed by Ian Corlett (original dub VA for Gokou; Ocean Studios) a
few months back. He seemed
more than interested in me telling you guys ("you" referring to FUNimation)
how I feel about the voices.
He did the same with Chris Psaros. Do I smell a hint coming from the God of
American voice acting? I
would give up drinking soda to have Mr. Corlett return. He's got experience,
he's got talent, and more
importantly, he knows. Knows what? Pick something. I'm sure he knows more
about it than the mother who
was hired.


Whats wrong with the voice actor’s jobs? Adolf Hitler painted houses
before he nearly conquered all of Europe. Granted, they probably don’t have any place
doing voice acting, but maybe JUST MAYBE they have talent and may be good! Now if my
mother did the voice of Frieza, i’d sh*t my pants everytime he issued a threat.


>This background fuels his determination to look for talent, not
>credentials: Some
of the performers they've used had never done this type of work before. <


In other words, he's looking for people he can pay the lowest wage, and
will still bake him cookies and
yell into a microphone all the absurd comments ("Whatever turns you on, big
boy" - Freezer to Gokou,
dub) he tells them to. Experience? Knowledge of the trade? Blasphemy!


We all now know that the reason Ian Corlett left the show was not because of
"other commitments" ; he left
because he was being poorly treated, and was not being paid enough. Mr.
Corlett knew for a fact he could
do better elsewhere. Ian, once again, I've gotta say it - while I was at
first ticked you left the show, I can
completely understand why you did it, and have even more respect for you now
than I did before.


You hit the nail right between the eyes. Of course he is looking for
people with the lowest wage. Duh! This is a business and any way to cut cost without
SERIOUSLY damaging the product is what they will do. And sometimes they will
seriously damage the product. As for the absurd comments, well, we all have said stupid things in our life,
haven’t we? And your opinion is just that- Your opinion, not a fact. As  for Ian, unless he
flat out says why he left, we have no room for saying why he left. Ever seen the “Bad
News Bears”? Good piece of advice- “AssUMe makes an Ass of U and Me.”


>I think the Japanese have more tolerance in general for bad dubbing than
Americans do," Sabat explains of his oft-repetitious voice directions. <


I dunno. The fanboys here have put up with a lot of garbage you produced
and still love it (Kami-sama
only knows why; maybe they haven't yet learned that it's OK to be critical
of what you watch, and it's OK to
demand quality). What incredible irony.


Or maybe its because they are grateful for what they have and don’t want to sound
like whiners just because they don’t like the dubbing. Fanboys have put up
with a lot of garbage? Not really, its just that we like what we hear because we have no
other basis. Example- A real big rage recently was when Pearl Jam did a cover of the song
“Last Kiss”. People thought that song was awesome. But when they heard the
original 1950’s version, they hated it. Same as with Aerosmith/Beatles with “Come Together”
and The Guess Who/Lenny Kravitz with “American Woman”. Maybe they aren’t critical
of what they watch because they like it just fine and they don’t want or need higher
quality because they are satisfied.


>There are three kinds of disgruntled Dragonball Z fans -- those purists who
>hate
FUNimation because of the changes they make to the show for American TV;
those who hate FUNimation for changing the voices in its third season; and
those
who hate how long it takes the company to dub, mix, edit, and score the new,
Americanized episodes. <


That pretty much covers it.


I agree.


>Right now, the Fort Worth FUNimation offices get hundreds, sometimes
thousands of e-mails a day; workers divide the messages into "Good Feedback"
and "Bad Feedback." Certainly, there is plenty of effusive praise from what
seems
to be mostly 12- to 17-year-old males -- lots of misspelled messages that
say
things like, "You guys are the best thing to happen to television since
color. I
watch the show every day. Its [sic] like a religious custom and im [sic] a
fanatic." <


This has nothing to do with FUNimation. This has everything to do with
you guys. Read on; I go into
more detail.


Yeah, lets read on.


>Much of the "Bad Feedback" can be chalked up to the frustration fans
experience at coming to the end of one saga, then having to wade through
weeks
of reruns (specifically, the first 53, Saban-diluted episodes, which now
also
appear on Cartoon Network) to get to a new one. Then, there are the one-line
flames -- "You whores!" and "Frieza is a lez" -- from fans who simply can't
stomach the edits and the new voices. Snowballing in length and intensity
are the
e-mails that read, "You people suck! You should change your name to
FUCKthenation! I hope you people rot in the deepest, darkest, hottest
riegions
[sic] of hell!" to an articulate 15-page complaint about the new American
score
(recorded in North Dallas) and a comparison of the Canadian voices and the
new
Texas voices. Watson does not know how this viewer managed to ascertain who
does what character, since actor and character names are not matched in the
closing credits. <


You morons (again, don't even start with me). I can still remember seeing
the massive amount of posts
on AOL message boards trying to start up a petition saying "FUCKimation
SuX!!!!~~" to send in to them.
Do you guys really think this is going to accomplish anything? Look at me,
for example. If you try and start
that nonsense with me, I post it, and let everyone laugh at your immaturity.
IN FACT, it's YOUR fault that
FUNimation does produce the show they way they do. You've obviously not
mature enough to handle the
show in its original fashion.
Then again, FUNimation did a little gender-bending with Freezer that I can't
imagine anyone in their
normal state of mind being content with.
As for the 15 page complaint.... I'm looking at Chris Psaros. I'm probably
wrong, but it's something he'd do
^^


Well I can accept the gender-bending thing. I mean, when Frieza was in
his 1st form, what real villian laughs by saying “Ho ho ho” with a girlish glee? And the
fact that Frieza has thick, colored lips doesn’t help matters much. When I saw Frieza
on a fansub I couldn’t tell if he was male or female. Honestly.


>But he notes that FUNimation is about to expand into the anime-snob market
>by
releasing the unedited Japanese series with English subtitles on DVD. <


This is where you cross the line, Mr. Sabat. I've really had enough. You
are someone who does twenty
voices (none of which, by the way, have any emotion behind them.... you
might want to work on that), lets a
librarian do a voice, and then have the nerve to call the people who KNOW
"DragonBall" snobs?


We're not asking for much. We're asking for a semi-respectable program. As
of right now, the dub is far
from being such. Your voices are terrible ("Grrrr.......
gggggrrrrrrrrr........ grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.......
grrrrrrrr...... ugh..... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......."), the music is less
inspired than that on my Casio keyboard I
received for Christmas a decade ago, and the scripts are absurd (once again,
I bring, "Whatever turns you
on, big boy" and "I eat really healthy foods!" into the light).


When we said we could do a better job with the musical score on our own
keyboard, that didn't infer that
we wanted you guys to go out, get a few $10 keyboards, and compose some
"music" all based around the
exact same guitar riff (it's "Rock the Dragon" all over again; only worse).


We're asking for something we can show to people, have them watch on TV, and
have them understand
where we're coming from.


Unfortunately, all we get are the constant "Pokemon" and WWF analogies.


First off, he didn’t insult you. He did not say, “The anime-snob market
that is full of DBZ fans that have seen the fansubs and fandubs and know the story”. What
he meant (by context) was that he was expanding into a market full of people that
think they can run everything 50-times better, despite having no prior experience and
believe that they can make all the episodes with a small budget. When you run around saying
that you can create more inspired music on your Casio keyboard, then hell yeah, people
will call you a snob. The scripts ARE NOT ABSURD, just the means. The end is the same, its
just a different way of doing it. And what is absurd about saying “I eat really
healthy foods!”? It shows that Goku actually cares about his body and that maybe, JUST MAYBE,
that he maintains his incredible power due to a great training regimen and proper
eating habits. I mean, look at Guldo after he went on that all chiliburger diet...^_^ Its
not simple to just come out and create music. As i’ve said before, I loved “Rock the Dragon”
because it was fairly intense and got you pumped for the show. and I like the new one.
By the way, did anyone else think they had found an animated version of “Pulp Fiction”
when they first heard “Rock The Dragon”? I liked “Head-Cha-La”, “Zenkai Power” and
“We Were Angels”. If you don’t like it, hit mute or fast forward or just leave the
room. The new opening theme is not all that bad, GET OVER IT ALREADY. And the voices?
HA! DBZ, in-between dialogue, is nothing but a bunch of people grunting, moaning
or straining. They are either distressed, raising their powerlevel, hurt,
punching, surprised, exasparated...”Grrrr.....Grrrr....Grrr....”, you don’t have to be a god of
voice acting to be able to make that kind of noise.


Hmmm...Goku 3:16- “I just KameHameHa’ed your ass!” or “Time for me to go
Super Saiya-Jin on your roodypoo candyass!” does have a nice ring to it. Pokemon?
“Genki...Genki....Genki...DAMA!” Nah, not as catchy. I like analogies.   Don’t knock it.


>"I need a bloodcurdling scream," Barry Watson says, sticking his head in
>the
small FUNimation recording room. "I mean, a really terrified, teenage-girl
kind of
yell." <


You got one when I popped in the "Captain Ginyu: Assault" video for the
first time. I was really sick
with the flu at the time, too, but I let it out. You guys probably heard me
all the way from Pennsylvania
when I let it out.



Smart view- See above.


Mark view- When I popped in “Captain Ginyu: Assault” I screamed, “KICK HIS ASS
GOKU!!!” That is what DBZ is supposed to be about. Cheering for the hero
and booing the villian, not complaining about the music and why they sound so crappy.
Try and enjoy the show, not pick it apart. Its hard, believe me I know that more
than anyone, but if you allow yourself to go with it, you’ll love to learn the dub. And you
might as well, because dubs are coming whether you like it or not. Love it or lump it.


As always, I invite comments, criticisms and rebuttals. DBZ does live on,
but what is life
without conflict?


The Super Texa-Jin,
Jonathan “Underfaker” Lindsey